Mark David Smith

"One spring evening, the town of Covenly gains three new residents, whose strangeness makes some of the other citizens uneasy. Hildegurp, Yuckmina, and Glubbifer set up shop, hoping for a fresh start and a new business: a pet store. Their first customer is nine-year-old Jessica Nibley, who has lost her pet goat and hopes the sisters can help track it down. But as they exit the shop, they discover a mangled note with missing pieces that suggests the...

"Inspired by a real-life 2015 discovery by a farmer in Michigan, this is a story about a boy named Caden who digs up a prehistoric woolly mammoth skeleton in his backyard. A recent heavy rain has exposed a bit of something in the yard, which Caden notices and resolves to dig up. He attempts to enlist the help of the adults in his life, who humorously dismiss his discovery. His classroom teacher jokes, "If you had found one of those, I'd eat my hat."...